


repeat

by JamtheDingus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ? - Freeform, ? i literally cant tell with these two, Angst, Backstory, Broken Promises, But also, Character Study, Introspection, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Chronological, Post-Kerberos Mission, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Kerberos Mission, Promises, Snippets, i think, ish, so much contrast, vaguely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-23 21:32:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13198959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamtheDingus/pseuds/JamtheDingus
Summary: "Be careful." Shiro says for him, urging him forward to place a delicate kiss in lieu of a lament against his forehead, right between the brows. Both of his palms press fully against Keith's shoulders, holding him tight before they inevitably release.Keith reaches up to kiss him across the lips; an apology. "I'll come back.""You'll come back." Shiro echoes— crowded with so many layers that Keith wouldn't know where to begin if he tried to pick it apart."I'll come back." He promises, again.---Shiro and Keith have a cycle. They come together, get torn apart, and then it repeats.





	repeat

**Author's Note:**

> oof my first sheith fic so ofc its got that angst factor goin on
> 
> kinda prose-y, but that basically describes my writing style these days /fingerguns/
> 
> this could also be titled "extreme use of the em dash" but i dont think that really fit the theme i had going on
> 
> hope you enjoy it!!! <3 
> 
>  
> 
> oh my god is this a songfic???? in 2017?????

**It started out as a feeling**

**which then grew into a hope**

 

⇷ ⇹ ⇸

 

"Do you remember when we first met?" Shiro asks, some day in the future. When they're no longer bloodying their backs for an unkind universe that they can't help but fight for. The fighting is never done, but they don't run themselves ragged.

He runs his fingers across his shaggy buzz cut, purposefully skirting around the bald spots shaped like claws that scratched at his cerebellum. Too close for comfort.

"How could I forget?" Keith says, simple as ever.

The Garrison— a plain backdrop to a love story that was much more complicated than it wanted to be.

What would they give to have that simple relationship back? Keith couldn't even say, and neither could Shiro. 'The universe' is too heavy, too back breaking to risk, but so is something smaller, like their 'team', 'Voltron', or even the simplest thing they could give at all, 'themselves'. They're too important, apparently.

Shiro had always been important, though. He'd been the star child; literally, metaphorically, hell... probably biblically, even.

Keith could remember when they first met, of course. Despite what others might think, it was Keith himself that sought out Shiro. He didn't _want_ to be a delinquent, as he was so often accused. He did want to become a pilot; wanted to go to space and see why the heavens were calling his name. So juvenile he was. So innocent.

He sought out Shiro, yes. He wanted to learn how to pilot and he only wanted to learn from the best of the best. But he was too fresh to be in the simulators, especially without a group of instructors to control everything.

Shiro took one look at him— what Keith must have looked like with an 'illegal' hairstyle that he hadn't gotten around to cutting to code, a crazed look in his eye— and told him, in much kinder words, to fuck off.

He changed his mind eventually, but Keith doesn't know that it was because of his conviction— how he'd broken into the sims anyway and blown everyone away with a score that outshined even the best of the best's. Shiro immediately put in a good word for him once he caught sound of it, saving him from a premature expulsion that would have ruined his only chance at getting out of the unending nothingness of the desert heat.

He saved him— but that unending heat was replaced with the empty cold of empty space. Infinite. There never were enough stars.

 

 

**which then turned into a quiet thought**

**which then turned into a quiet word**

**⇷ ⇹ ⇸**

 

Neither can remember when they grew from platonic to romantic— there was no set moment where they sat down and declared their feelings, or no point in time where they met each other's eyes and angels sung harmonies.

They just... met in the middle. Twined together like epiphytes latch onto the roots of trees and suck them dry— but they grew to be less parasitic. Keith once said something similar to Shiro, a long time ago, and Shiro squinted at him in the undecipherable way he does when it's late at night and they're both sleep deprived to all hell.

"Like... grafting?"

"Skin grafts?"

Shiro grimaced. "I was thinking more like... inosculation. When two trees start growing together— into one another."

He paused, as if a puzzle piece slotted into place without him even realizing it was missing. He grinned, the sap, and gathered Keith up in a hug so tight that Keith felt grounded. A rarity.

It feels like they've been like that forever. Two saplings who grew apart for a decade or two before they crashed together, corkscrewing into a spiral of black and red threads that never stop tangling together.

"I love you." Shiro says, and he means it. They knock heads accidentally, both reaching forward for a kiss at the same time. Like magnets.

And, just like magnets, nobody knows how the hell they work— but they just _do_ and they work well.

He's too tired for metaphors.

Keith rubs the spot that reddens under his fingertips; his laugh, startled. "You're a dork." He says, and he means that, too.

Shiro smooths down Keith's messy mane and presses a steadying kiss between his brows, hands large enough to finger the ends of his hair while he presses the heel of his palm against Keith's cheek.

They don't say anything worth remembering afterwards— not that the words were meaningless— but Shiro still sometimes knocks his head against Keith's— on purpose— gathers up his skull, and kisses it better.

 

 

**and then that word grew louder and louder**

**'til it was a battle cry**

**⇷ ⇹ ⇸**

 

Sometimes Keith lies awake, and the bed on his left side is cold when he runs his fingers across the sheets. His heart freezes just as cold.

Shiro is gone, but is he _gone_ or is he just wandering? Isn't it all just the same thing? Keith never described himself as clingy but people change— and he changed the most when he met Shiro.

He wakes up alone, cold and alone, and he panics because he can't do it again— he can't go out every day and search in the nothing, in the infinite for a dead man.

But then he breathes, inhaling deep and full until his lungs stretch so far that they _must_ rip at the edges because he can taste blood on the back of his tongue when he exhales. He rolls out of bed, staring at the wall until he can make out the outlines of his jacket hanging on the wall. He stares and stares and stares until he can see Shiro's vest hanging on the same hook, against the wall, and his chest trembles when he takes his next breath.

He stands, leaves the layers behind, and sets out for the nothing of the ship, toes freezing against the metal floor. The lights are dimmed in the simulated night, but Keith's eyes pierce through the dark deep enough for him to make out every detail as he follows a path he didn't even mean to memorize, until he makes it to the part of the Castle that Allura and Coran don't go because it hurts too much— and there he finds Shiro. He's sitting in what must have been a lovely garden before it all died. The vines are all dust along the walls but they've walked through the dirt enough that there are visible footprints when he pries the door open, as if the ghost who owned those poor sprouts came back to fix it all.

Shiro sits in the middle of it all. This time he isn't crying, but he's close when he turns his head up to look at Keith, biting firmly down on his lip to keep it from trembling.

Keith presses a hand against his shoulder. Shiro reaches up to grasp onto it, desperate even if the motions are subtle. Keith lets him squeeze it as tight as he wants, but he doesn't sit. He needs to be ready to lift him up.

Other times, it's Keith that wakes first and leaves the warmth of their bed for the cold nothing that freezes his toes and makes his lungs bleed. He might go to fight the training bots— but he only does that when others are awake.

He leaves the warm of their bed for the cold nothing that freezes his toes and makes his lungs bleed in order to look out at the empty nothing that would kill him with no hesitance. It would steal the breath from his bloody lungs and freeze him into a thick unguent to soothe the cracks in the space-time, but he'd probably melt in a exploding star instead. Tragic.

Sometimes he can hear himself yelling and screaming in the back of his parietal lobe until it ignites magma through his veins, burning him from the inside but cooling long before it reaches the out.

Shiro finds him not even two hours after he leaves, like clockwork. Just long enough for the body heat to dissipate, for Shiro to wake and wonder if its Keith that's gone or wandering— same thing.

Shiro doesn't silently wait for him to ready himself. He physically holds Keith, squeezing him tight until the pain has nowhere else to go but out and he lets him cry against his shoulder. Sometimes he yells, sometimes he does nothing, but always he feels better.

They carry one another back to bed, their ghosts walking together in opposite directions only to come together in the messy bedspread that neither cares to make up anymore in the mornings.

They stare into one another's eyes, staring and staring and staring, and maybe they fall asleep at the same time, or maybe their spirits leave their bodies and they twirl around in the twilight for the few hours until they have to awaken and start the day as if the night never happened.

They wake like the night never happened; first one, then another.

 

 

**I'll come back when you call me**

**no need to say goodbye**

**⇷ ⇹ ⇸**

 

It's unfortunate that Keith doesn't hear that Shiro got accepted to the Kerberos mission from Shiro himself. The news was a smack to the face, thrown at him in the heat of a moment when he got a commander too riled up and they spilled the secret.

 _'If you want to amount to the legacy Shirogane is leaving behind, you'd better learn to listen to your superiors. Maybe then you'll get accepted to something as sublime as the Kerberos mission.'_ Because, yes— Garrison's asshole professors said shit like 'sublime' in every day speech and expected to _not_ be treated like assholes.

Keith stormed through the halls, knocking shoulders with almost everyone. Not on purpose, but it's not like he or anyone else cared. He shouted things, too, but he'll never be able to remember them. All he remembers is the hurt that crawled into his chest cavity, filling the spaces between his organs and replacing his bones with cobwebs.

He doesn't cry when he reaches Shiro by some lucky straw-pull, but he does shove him against a wall, and he _yells_.

He shouts and he smacks his fist against the desk a few times, splinters the edge just an inch or two. And Shiro lets him, until Keith starts to claw at his arm, desperate to tear something apart— even if it meant he was ripping at his own flesh.

He doesn't bleed, but the red gouges look bloody anyway, and they stay until Shiro is shipped off to Kerberos.

Shiro sits him down, calm and the perfect picture of the Garrison's Golden Boy. A persona. A rarity. A tragedy.

"It's a big opportunity." Shiro explains, as if Keith didn't know that. As if they hadn't discussed already that, if Keith was able— if he were just a few months older or had enough experience or enough charisma to finagle his way onto the mission— he'd apply for it, too.

Neither were expecting Shiro to be accepted. But Commander Holt put a good word in, and the Garrison listened, and now Shiro was leaving Keith behind.

Keith never described himself as clingy but—

"I'll come back." Shiro promised, fruitlessly. If only he'd known— if only they'd known, if only, if only— maybe things would be different.

The words fracture in his brain after that, like sugar glass— crushed to powder with time— that melted away before he was able to cool his molten core. He doesn't even remember the words he regrets, and Shiro knows it but he forgives him no matter what.

The stars are too far for him to reach Shiro. They're too far but he waits anyway, reaches for them anyway, mourns for them in every way.

Shiro doesn't come back. Keith tries to stay and grow, to make him proud in some fucked up idolization of what he thinks Shiro would want him to be— but then 'Pilot Error' glares across every screen of every channel of every television and he can't think, can't see anything but the sans serif font circling around his head, blocking his view of Shiro's back, walking to the shuttle craft that goes missing for longer than it should and all he sees all he hears all they shout is error, error, error—

He smashes them. He crushes the words to powder and smears it across concrete, except one time someone says it to his face; tells him he's trying to be like a pilot that killed a highly decorated officer and ruined the Garrison's reputation, and well... It isn't concrete, but blood smears across linoleum just the same.

Keith ends up in the unending nothingness of a hot desert, alone with only an alien dagger at his hip and a hoverbike— and nothing is right anymore but he keeps going, keeps replaying scenes he wishes he can rewrite so that he can say the things he wants to say but _better_ , keeps calling to the stars, keeps searching.

If only he'd known— If only they'd known.

 

 

**You’ll come back when they call you,**

**No need to say goodbye**

**⇷ ⇹ ⇸**

 

He looks out to the stars, so far— too close— and watches as a Blade ship cruises past, transmitting a message that reaches them 1/4th of a tick after being sent. Shiro pulls it up with an absent wave of his hand, and the words flash between them.

They're requesting back up, and of course Keith would be the one to answer. Shiro smiles at him— and it might be a sad one, but Keith isn't very sure anymore. Maybe that's the way they both look these days. Longing for better than they're ever going to get.

Keith reaches behind his back for his dagger, holds it in his palm until the symbol— long uncovered after he _finally_ accepted himself— sears at his life line. He grips it tight and opens his mouth to say something, but he can only shake his head.

"Be careful." Shiro says for him, urging him forward to place a delicate kiss in lieu of a lament against his forehead, right between the brows. Both of his palms press fully against Keith's shoulders, holding him tight before they inevitably release.

Keith reaches up to kiss him across the lips; an apology. "I'll come back."

"You'll come back." Shiro echoes— crowded with so many layers that Keith wouldn't know where to begin if he tried to pick it apart. They knew each other better than that, though, so he leaves them on the wall.

"I'll come back." He promises, again.

Later, when he's aboard the waiting craft and getting ready to warp, he catches sight of Shiro standing where he left him on the deck, metal fingers stretched against the Altean glass window.

He looks proud, vaguely, and Keith feels his heart leap. He knows he must be impossible to see— wearing all dark behind a tinted window— but he mimics the action, palm pressing against glass cold enough to freeze him even through his suit.

Shiro turns away, shoulders squaring as he returns back to business as usual, and Keith does the same. Both have matching smiles, bright like an exploding star and just as tragic, even as Keith warps a universe away to a planet he cares little about and Shiro throws himself into diplomacy he wanted nothing to do with.

And when they return to one another, in the privacy of their shared quarters— hiding away under a too small blanket with their bleeding hearts— their longing turns to static, like the kind radio stations never could get rid of. The song is still there, loud and bright and happy, but the crunching noise is a constant in the background. No matter how much they fiddle the dial, the static is a constant in the background.

But it's in the background, and the universe doesn't feel as heavy anymore. If only becomes a phrase that doesn't matter, and they aren't the defenders of the universe or kids at a space academy. They're just one another.

They're just one and an other.

**Author's Note:**

> wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
> 
> the random lyrics popped in between 'scenes' are from 'The Call' by Regina Spektor. You may remember it from a movie that fucked me up as a child, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian circa 2008. you don't have to read into those if you don't wanna bc they were basically just scene prompts.
> 
> f i r s t s h e i t h f i c 
> 
> going into 2018 right my dudes


End file.
